


The Trouble with Gates

by emblazonet



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Drunken brawling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emblazonet/pseuds/emblazonet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vilvyni Sershurrapal, an unlikely Ashlander mage caught in the turmoil of the Oblivion Crisis, just wants to settle down for a night of drinking and brawling in Cheydinhal with her good friend Vilja. When the Gate appears, and the foolish and incompetant Knights of the Thorn leap right in, Vilvyni and Vilja are obligated to save their sorry behinds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Gates

**Author's Note:**

> Vilja is from the companion mod of the same name, created by Emma and CDCooley (which can be found at the Oblivion Nexus, as you might expect). I did try my hardest to differentiate 'Vilvyni' and 'Vilja' in the most non-confusing way possible, but I probably failed.
> 
> This story was just supposed to be an angsty character study of my Oblivion OFC, but then it turned silly and then it turned into a mini-adventure and an excuse to abuse Farwil Indarys. I hope you will find it enjoyable.

Vilvyni lost her grip on her tankard, spilling mazte over the counter and onto Vilja's blue dress. "Enough," she snarled, and groped in her purse for coin to throw down on the counter. "I need something stronger and ... Morrowindier."  
  
    Dervera Romalen, publican of the Newlands Lodge, best pub in Cyrodiil, raised her eyebrows, ducked under the bar, and came out with a rotund sujamma bottle. It was a good thing she'd upped her order for Morrowind drinks, because the rate Vilvyni was going, she'd be drinking the whole shipment before too long. At least this legendary Hero of Kvatch spilled coin as readily as mazte. Much to Vilja's disappointment. The Nord had, just the other night, leaned over conspiratorially to whisper in Dervera's ear that they were running low on coin. The bulk of it went to armour and weapon maintenance, and the rest—"Which could be used on books, or alchemy ingredients, or spells, or a new dress, and she's just drinking it all down."  
  
    "At least she's drinking it here," Dervera said, topping up Vilja's mead. "It's good she lets other Dunmer profit from her success."  
  
    Vilja had grumbled into her mug. Truth be told, Dervera could tell there was something not right about Vilvyni. Her eyes maybe, Dunmer-red but black as bruises underneath? More lines in her face? But Vilvyni's mother was an Ashlander, so Vilvyni said, and Ashlanders always had a ruggedness on their faces. Dervera was happy enough to have been raised a House Dunmer.  
  
    The brawl started between a couple of regulars: predictably, over religion. Alon and Brindu and an Imperial Dervera had seen a few times had been comparing and contrasting the Tribunal and the Nine. As Vilvyni swilled sujamma on her right, the argument heated up on her left. Brindu, brawny for a Dunmer, had a temper as hot as his forge: he swung at the Imperial, and the Imperial landed in Vilvyni's lap.  
      
    The bar exploded at once. This late at night, everyone was tinder. Vilvyni knocked the Imperial down, leapt to her feet, and flung the sujamma bottle at Alon's shoulder—Dervera expected she'd aimed higher—and cursed foully. The bar erupted into shouts and violence and heaving furniture. Vilja, dodging around Vilvyni, ducked behind the bar.  
  
    "Oh, I am so tired of this," she complained.  
  
    "You're a Nord, go in and swing your fists," said Dervera, keeping one eye on the crowd as she fetched some more alcohol. For the most part, she and her valuable wares were safe behind the bar. Usually the fights spilled into the other room, instead of invading her space. And she had a mean punch if things got too out-of-hand.  
  
    "Even Nords get tired of brawls," Vilja said, sniffing delicately. "I'll be nursing Vi the whole night if she keeps going. Ugh, would you look at that? She thinks she's swimming in a pool!"  
  
    Vilvyni had just dived at an orc, or maybe the orc had dived into her. They crashed to the ground, breaking through a chair, and rolled over and over. The brawl sidestepped and broiled around them. Vilvyni pushed the orc over, sujamma-strong, straining to—what? Throttle him? The muscles on her arms stood out as she strove against the orc. For a second it seemed she would have the better of him, but the orc heaved her onto her side and slammed his fist into her skull.  
  
    "Vi!" Vilja vaulted over the bar, shouldering aside hot-tempered mer and men. She grabbed Vilvyni beneath the shoulders and pulled her out. Magic sparkled over them, purple and pulsing: some enchantment, Dervera guessed. One of Vilvyni's, though Vilja had activated it. It did the job, keeping the surging beast of the brawl at bay.  
  
    The guards almost trampled the two as they roared in to make peace with their fists. Dervera sighed, leaned on the bar, and watched. She did so hate it when the guards came to break up her entertainment.

~~~~

  
"Vi. Vi! ViViViVI!"  
  
    Shock. Coldness. Blackness broken by the icy sharp flare of wet. Vilvyni Sershurrapal groaned, because she remembered her name, and that she was drunk. Some idiot had thrown water on her. "Wha?" she mumbled. "Grof."  
  
    "VILVYNI!"  
  
    Oh, that was Vilja. "Shut up, Vi, I'm tired."  
  
    "You're in the middle of the road! The guards will fine you the same as the other poor Dunmer, and then where will you be? It's a minute or so to walk to the Mage's Guild."  
  
    Vilvyni sat up, rubbing her pounding head. She blinked muzzy eyes. Vilja loomed over her, arms akimbo, a bucket dangling from one hand. Empty. The cold contents ran in rivulets underneath Vilvyni's shirt and trousers. Swaying blurs of brightness marked the street lamps. They seemed to be getting brighter.  
  
    "S'jamma?" Vilvyni asked plaintively.  
  
    "You drank it—"  
  
    Suddenly, Vilvyni was aware that part of the clanging in her head wasn't just her headache. The jangling sound was bells, alarm bells, and there were footsteps too, pounding on the cobblestones. She shut her throbbing eyelids.  
  
    Vilja said above her, "We have to get you to the Guild."  
  
    A man said, "There's no time for that. You two are Vilja and Vilvyni? We need you now. Now! Cheydinhal's under attack!"  
  
    Vilvyni raised her head and opened her eyes. The sky was a yellow haze, shot through with red lightning, and bright, bright, as if the sun had crashed into the Cheydinhal roofs. "Sheogorath!" she swore. "Of course it is."  
  
    "We need you," said the man, a Cheydinhal guard, Imperial and young with the biggest nose Vilvyni had ever seen. There was a plaintive tone in his voice and he held his naked sword in his hand. "I was sent to find you. We need you."  
  
    All around them was shouting and screaming, rising in volume. Vilvyni staggered to her feet and swayed. Vilja's hand clamped around her arm and tugged her forward. She was calling over her shoulder, "We're coming, we just need to get our armour and weapons."  
  
    Somehow Vilvyni managed to stagger into the Mages' Guild and up the stairs. She was distantly aware that she was moaning as she put on her surcoat, tugged her chain cuirass over her head, and started adjusting the straps and belting it snug.  
  
    Vilja thrust a small bladder into her hand. "Drink this."  
  
    Vilvyni sniffed the opening. A familiar scent: pungent herbs and sludge. Vilja called it 'Vivec Sewage,' and it was the most disgusting hangover remedy Vilvyni had ever tasted. It was also the best. She gulped it down, swallowed several times and prayed to the Nine to keep the contents of her stomach down. The nausea passed. She reached for her gauntlets. Across from her, Vilja wrestled with her heavy daedric plate.  
  
    As they armed up, Vilvyni could hear the floorboards creaking below them, and agitated voices all talking at once. When she and Vilja were ready, Vilvyni with her bow at the ready, and Vilja clanking and terrible, they headed downstairs. Deetsan waved her hands and tail, talking very rapidly about necessary shielding.  
  
    Vilvyni shook her head, clearing out the last of the muzziness, while the Sewage worked on the headache. "Get out and cast the spells now," she snapped. Dithering idiots! There was a Gate to Oblivion on the other side of the wall, and they were just standing here? "Don't just talk!"  
  
    They stared at her, Trayvond and Deetsan and Uurwen and the rest. Vilvyni was not really their friend, and Cheydinhal was where she came to drink and relax. It had been stupid of her to let down her guard. She yelled at her fellow guildmembers and shepherded them out the door, barking orders as she jogged for the city gate: "Climb the city wall and keep the crenellations between you and missiles. Protect any civilians first. Hold a shield around the city gate, maintain that at all costs. Whoever isn't maintaining that, either shield the guards or use destruction magic, whatever you're most comfortable with. Try not to use up your magicka too fast!" The s'wits didn't have a single battlemage amongst them.  
  
    They had reached the gate. The mages split away, racing for stairs and ladders. Vilvyni squared her shoulders, nodded at Vilja, and raced out below the portcullis. The Oblivion Gate was up the slope beyond the stables, lightnings shooting out from its arch like menacing arms.  
  
    A contingent of guards distracted the flow of daedra. Spider daedra clicked and wove spells with hands and forefeet, dremora roared and hefted high their heavy weaponry, and clannfear and daedroths snarled and leapt, their claws piercing and scraping over plate armour.          
  
    And right before the Gate, shining with its horrible fiery light, stood a troop of knights. Knights of the Thorn, Vilvyni realized. Her heart sank into her boots. That was the count's spoiled son, diving into the Gate. Those were his foppish friends, heading to their death.  
  
    "Come on," she yelled, waving Vilja on. "To the Gate!" They circled the onslaught with the relative ease of practice, though it still seemed to take far too much time to reach the Gate. They ducked spells, sidestepped claws, backed away from the competent Cheydinhal guards. Vilvyni didn't even bother to draw her bow. She was faster with it resting on her back, throwing splashes of blinding light to left and right, to clear her path to the Gate itself.  
  
    Then finally they stood before the Gate. Vilvyni spared one glance back at Cheydinhal. Magic and blades rippled in the chaotic sea of battle. The lines fought and blended, a ruddy glittering brown. A sudden jet of a guard's arterial blood near her made her stomach turn. She turned and plunged into the Gate.  
  
~~~~

The air configured into lightning and red and the smell of charred flesh. A knight lay crumpled beneath a clannfear that snapped at Vilvyni's face. Vilvyni yelled and flinched, warding herself with flame that leapt from fingers and palms to surround the daedra.  
  
    It flailed backwards, snarling, its teeth jailing a hot red tongue. Vilvyni sidestepped hastily as Vilja brought her warhammer down with a resounding thump on its head. The clannfear fell and lay still, a hump of ashy brown beside the smoke-streaked corpse of the knight.  
  
    There were screams and trembling war-cries on the air. Vilvyni paused and readied her bow, settling her quiver more comfortably on her hip, and took stock of the terrain. She and Vilja stood high on a black cliff, overlooking those roiling seas of lava. Far beneath them were great steel gates blocking entrance to the metal highway that would take them to the central tower, itself only a hulking blur in the far distance. Distances were strangely malleable in Oblivion, Vilvyni knew. Appearances twisted as you walked the horrid roads.  
  
    She and Vilja picked their way down the switchback paths through bloodgrass and restless harrada root. It should have reminded her of the Ashlands—Mehrunes Dagon's Oblivion always made her think of her once-home—but there were too many differences. The lava here was different, wilder and but less hot. There were no seas of lava on Vvardenfell, and if there had been, no Dunmer could live there no matter how resistant their flesh was to flame and heat. Trama root did not bunch together to form gnarled fists to thump an unwary traveler. Any Ashlander child could defend against cliffracers, poison-snorting alit, and the multitude of beetles; but daedra were another thing. The Empire might fear the wildness of the Ashlands, but they had never stepped into Oblivion.  
  
    The distant sounds of battle grew louder but then they stopped. Vilja and Vilvyni exchanged glances, and picked up the pace, trotting down the path and sliding when the slope steepened, throwing up clouds of blood-tinged dust. They came up on a spider daedra unawares, and Vilvyni had loosed an arrow from her bow before she even realized her arms were moving, shooting it in the shoulder. Green light raced over the spider and vanished: a sign the silencing poison had taken hold. Confused, the spider lifted its legs to write arcane signs on the air, but nothing happened except that its hesitation gave Vilja an opening. Vilvyni jogged past, not wanting to see the body flatten beneath Vilja's warhammer.  
      
    Stillness, silence. She couldn't see over the tumble of boulders and bloodgrass, below to where the knights were dead or alive. She hoped they were just taking a break beside the corpses of fallen daedra. She hoped, and when they found the next dead Knight of the Thorn, her hopes fell.  
  
    She felt exhausted by the time they slid down a steep incline. There were three knights, hiding behind a boulder so that the dremora patrolling on the metal road could not see them. One knight was fallen—dead, and his arms and legs at terrible angles. Two hunched in the boulder's shade, pale and sweat-streaked beneath their armour.  
  
The smaller of the two scrambled to his feet. "Hail!" he cried. Vilvyni winced and looked towards the metal road. The dremora were fading into the blackish fog that gathered at the base of the sigil tower. They had not heard or did not care. Dremora had a strange patience.  
  
    The young knight was babbling, "We have been beset by foulness! Our five comrades fallen, but clearly you have been sent unto us to swell our ranks!"  
  
    Vilvyni exchanged grimaces with Vilja. The Dunmer beamed at them through soot-streaked features, waiting for a favourable response. Vilvyni rolled her shoulders and shifted the grip on her bow. "I see," she said. "You charged the enemy with no command of tactics, and now your friends are dead."  
  
    Farwil Indarys's beam collapsed into a scowl. "We battled bravely and boldly! They gave their lives for Cheydinhal! For the Empire! How dare you besmirch the honour of the Knights of the Thorn?!"  
  
    "Farwil," said the other knight. He rose, slowly and, to Vilvyni's mind, arthritically, and placed his gauntleted hand on the Dunmer's shoulder. "Don't yell at them."  
  
    "She's—"  
  
    "Telling the truth as I see it," Vilvyni cut in. "We're here to save your sorry asses. So. Go. Go up the slope, go back through the Gate, and go reassure your father. Vilja and I have been in Gates before, and we'll take care of it."  
  
    Farwil Indarys gaped at her. The other man, Imperial, maybe, or Breton, looked up longingly to where the cliff hid the sight of the Gate. He would have dragged the young knight with him but Farwil shrugged off his hands and snapped, "Where is your honour, Bremman? Would you leave two ladies to fight the wrath of Oblivion alone? No, warriors!" he turned back to Vilvyni and Vilja, "We shall fight at your side!"  
  
    "Don't be stupid," said Vilja with a laugh, but Farwil was already turning, pulling his sword from his sheath, and opening his mouth to yell.  
  
    Vilvyni yanked him around by the arm and tossed him backwards. "Stay there and shut up," she snarled, and for a wonder, he went still. "I'm tired, and I have a hangover, and I'm not about to get killed because you decided suicide sounded like a great plan. Anyway, you're injured. What are you playing at, charging in there? I saw at least two dremora, and that's not to say there won't be more. Fine. You won't leave? Then shut up and listen, by Azura, or I'll tie you up and let Vilja carry you out herself!"  
  
    Vilja swung her warhammer about with ease, and grinned from underneath her bristling daedric helm.  
  
    Farwil glowered and pouted.  
  
    Vilvyni thought fast. "Look, I am Vilvyni Sershurrapal, hero of Kvatch! I'm a Knight of the White Stallion, and battle-hardened, same as Vilja here. You'll obey my orders."  
  
    Farwil blinked and shook himself. "My pardons, Lady Knight! I mean, Hero! Command me! I am Farwil Indarys, Knight of the Thorn!"  
  
    Vilja turned away to hide a smirk. Vilvyni hated to be called 'the Hero of Kvatch', and as for knighthood, that had been an accident. Still, clearly the pointless awards cheered Farwil up. Maybe he'd listen now.  
  
    "Right," said Vilvyni, "Here's what we'll do."  
  
    They took some time to rest. Vilja fed the knights two vials of her best healing tonic, and poured cleansing fluid on their scratches and gashes, binding them up with the bandages she always carried with her. Vilvyni drank most of a flask of water, hoping to ease the headache and clear her mind. It was important for a mage to be well-watered, and she'd long ago learned that in an Oblivion Gate, it was more important to drink and strike hard and fast, rather than try and save the water and cast shoddy spells.  
  
    Then they were ready to go. Vilvyni readied one of her many Ashlander amulets. She always wore, beneath her armour, rows of charms and spells and trinkets, family heirlooms, gifts, baby-charms she made herself once, weaving together trama root, scathecraw and thick ash-grass.  
  
    This amulet was more powerful than any of the other trinkets. It was made of slim fingerbones forming a hexagon, bones that had belonged to her mother's mother, and so on, for three more generations. Vilvyni kissed the bones, and breathed the incantation. It was in Dunmeris, in the Urshilaku dialect:  
  
 _Create_  
 _Create and let flow_  
 _Create and let flow over the land_  
 _Create and let flow_  
 _Create!_  
  
    The gleaming form of an Ashlander wisewoman burst upwards from the charm in Vilvyni's cupped hands,  made of white and scarlet lights that solidified into a strong illusion. Patterned skirts swirled as the wisewoman strode onto the metal bridge, yelling and brandishing a chitin staff.  
  
    "Go!" hissed Vilvyni. She, Vilja, and the two bedraggled Knights of the Thorn, slid down the cliff below the bridge. There were large boulders in the lava. With the right enchantment, they would all be able to jump beneath to the sigil tower, fooling the dremora. They scrambled as far out below the bridge as they could without enhancement.  
  
    The spell to fool gravity was not terribly tricky, an apprentice spell at most. In the craggy Ashlands in the north of Vvardenfell, Vilvyni had perfected it for leaping over chasms and mud pits. But to cast it five times in succession, on others, was harder, and she hoped as the others leap-frogged that they could keep their balance—the older knight, Bremman, teetered dangerously on the rocks. Vilvyni held her breath as she leapt after the others, if graceful only from muscle memory and familiarity, and she staggered at the last, panting softly. Her head began to throb again.  
  
    "Come on, Vi," whispered Vilja. They scrambled up the slope and pushed into the keep. The dremora sentinels, chasing the illusion on the other side of the long fog-wreathed bridge, did not notice them.  
  
    Before the door had entirely shut behind them, the wide chamber was a flash of chaos, magic bursts and scaled bodies. Vilvyni didn't think or even look at the room: she reacted. She inhaled and lifted her fingers to her brow, muttering. Brow. Left shoulder. Right shoulder. Stomach. She lifted her hands and the flame atronach spun into being before her, at once loosing a conflagration at the nearest clannfear. For whatever reason, it was always easier to call a daedra in the planes of Oblivion.  
  
    As the flame atronach danced and spun and shot off sparks to distract the attacking daedra, Vilvyni took stock of  the battle: the Knights fought a dremora mage, or rather his own summoned fire atronach, and from the shade of the odd red-orange glow around them, that was a leeching spell, not light from the atronach. The Knights were gasping, their arms faltering. And Vilvyni felt inside her, and no magicka sprang to answer.  
  
    That was the curse she'd been born with. The Atronach constellation had glittered high at the moment of her birth, and it took sorcery to open the channel between her and magic. And when she was depleted, it gaped like a wound held open by clawed hands, aching, empty, making her head spin and her stomach buck. It was only a few seconds of disorientation before the powerful enchantment she'd laid on her mithril cloak-clasp forced her open wider, letting her draw upon the world's magic. That first drop of magicka within her restored her balance and soothed her roiling stomach. Now, she could act.  
  
    She drew an arrow, nocked it, and brought up her bow. The dremora caught the arrow in his throat, but his skin was tough, unnatural; he stumbled but did not fall. It was seconds before her next arrow caught him in the eye, and then he was gone, his lifeless body slumped, the Knights by their momentum falling forward through the empty air that once had held an atronach.  
  
    Vilvyni turned to see Vilja flatten the head of a clannfear and then everything was still. For now, they had won.  
  
    "Don't go anywhere," Vilvyni ordered the Knights, letting her arms drop. Weariness made it hard for her to focus. The battle-high was fading faster than it should. She had never felt so drained in a Gate. Always, always she had been able to rest before entering. But this was war, now, with Gates opening everywhere, nearly every day. She wanted to lie down, even here at the base of this infested tower, and weep for the futility of it all. But for the Knights' sake, she had to get them out. She was their only chance. "Let's recoup. Vilja, you've got more poultices? Bandages?"  
  
    For a moment Farwil looked as if he were about to protest for whatever stupid reason, but then he looked down at his freely-bleeding arm—his shield arm—and consented to let Vilja tend it.  
  
    Bremman was tired, his skin slick with sweat, but apart from fresh blood-stains on an older bandage, showing he'd re-opened a wound in the fight, he was otherwise unharmed. Vilvyni sank to the floor beside him, and they panted together, old campaigners knowing to relax while they were safe in the eye of the storm.  
      
    "I don't know how many more I've got in me," Bremman said.  
  
    "It will have to be enough," said Vilvyni. "I can't believe you listen to that fool."  
  
    Bremman chuckled, but with little humour. "Farwil means well. It's not easy, being spoiled and forbidden to do anything important, for fear he'll hurt himself. His father is... not ideal, you understand, and his mother was very distant. Very pious, and of the mindset that nobles do not mind children, that is why they hire nursemaids."  
  
    Vilvyni leaned away from Bremman and spat. "House Dunmer," she grumbled. "Soft, soft, soft."  
  
    "So you're an Ashlander," said Bremman, looking towards Farwil, who was shrinking away from Vilja's glare as she aggressively wound the bandage around his arm.  
  
    Vilvyni nodded. "My father lived near Leyawiin for much of his life, but he'd been born Ashlander. They didn't love each other enough to be together: Father needed to live in the marsh, and Mother couldn't bear to leave Vvardenfell. I grew up in Vvardenfell with my mother's tribe, the Urshilaku, in a land a bit like the outside of this tower, but much warmer, and with a great deal more ash."  
  
    "So I've heard. I've only ever been to Morrowind, to Mournhold, once, by boat." Bremman gazed upwards at nothing. "A very beautiful city, unmatched. Cheydinhal cannot hold a candle to its grandeur."  
  
    Vilvyni spat again. Dunmer in Morrowind did not need cities. To be Dunmer in a Cyrodillic city was one thing, but House Dunmer were something else, like mudcrabs without a shell.  
  
    Meanwhile, Vilja tied off Farwil's bandage. It was time to go. Stifling a groan, and then a yawn, Vilvyni dragged herself to her feet.  
  
    How many of these halls had she walked now? Through the hard bristling doors that snapped open at a touch, up the winding slope. The faint light was the pink of blood on white cloth, and the shadows pulsed in the corners. Once, the shadows disgorged a low-ranking dremora, clumsy with its heavy claymore. The Knights flanked it and jabbed with their swords, but it was Vilja who took it down with a warhammer to the face.  
  
    Vilvyni brought down her bow. Magicka pooled up inside her like a liquid, slaking an arcane thirst, but it was still too slow. And her bow was the least of the weapons assembled here: it was a hunter's bow, meant to take down game, or hold off an attacker. She ducked in an alcove and kept to the wall, fumbling at her belt for a vial of her home-brew tonic. It tasted herby and fresh and it pulled something inside of her wide open. Some mages claimed they felt the effects in their brains, because Guild Mages always linked intelligence to magic. But Vilvyni had been taught at the knee of Nibani Maesa, and the Ashlanders held that magicka came from the gut. That was where the pain of opening was. That was where she was filled.  
  
    A pain intensified, a need filled. That was the balance of magery, the price of power. Vilvyni had never been so thankful for it: the pain kept her awake when she needed it.  
  
    In the tower's core, free of the blood-spattered hallway, they fought a pair of spider daedra with hag's faces and clever front legs that wove magic in the air. Ducking into the doorway, Vilvyni swiped a greenish balm over several of her arrows, and as fast as she could she nocked her arrow, leapt into the hallway, took aim into the melee and let loose.  
  
    The arrow flew true, between Vilja and Farwil and clipping neither. It struck the face of a spider daedra, opening a big gash from nostril to ear. The daedra clicked with her feet, and the light of her spell shuddered and went out as the silencing potion did its worked. Vilvyni shouldered her way through her allies, ducking a lunging barbed spider-leg, and pressed her palm to the daedra's flesh. She muttered a charm, and turned it into a chant with a twist of her words. Fire burst around them. Vilvyni ducked backwards, raise her hands and continued her chant, letting the fire build hotter. Blue and white joined the colours of the orange and red flames. The daedra didn't hold out much after that. She burnt to a crisp beside the battered corpse of her compatriot.  
      
    "I think you burned me," Farwil said. "That wasn't honourable. The spider was going to be my kill."  
  
    Vilvyni was too tired even to muster the fantasy of choking him. "You are Dunmer, boy," she rasped. "You might not have the sense Sheogorath would give a scrib, but no fire of mine should be able to harm you."  
  
    Farwil held out his sword-arm. The plate metal was burned and black and twisted. It could have cooked his flesh inside, but Vilvyni doubted it. He said, his voice pitched to a whine, "As a knight, you should ever strive to avoid friendly fire."  
  
    Vilja snorted. Vilvyni checked her bow to make sure it was still in fighting condition. "I am a mage before I am anything. I am Dunmer, so I favour fire. We are in the midst of a battle, and you are complaining about 'your kills'? And honour? No. There is no honour here." She waved her arm about. "Look around you." He made as if to say something, but she cut him off: "No. Look around! We are in Oblivion, in the planes of Mehrunes Dagon. Heard of him? Right. We _should_ die here. If you lose the arm, a leg, all of your limbs even, you will still be alive, and you'll be thankful for it. Do you know how damned lucky you are to be alive right now? We are all of us exhausted. That lowers the odds of us getting out of here.  
  
    "Unfortunately, you're also an idiot. You charge right into a battle, take no stock of your troops' strengths and weaknesses, and complain when I use magic to save your sorry ass. That means it's odds no gambler likes that we even get to the bloody sigil keep." Vilvyni's voice did not rise, but with each word Farwil seemed to shrink back, closer to Bremman. "So how about instead of complaining how I'm not a brash and useless knight cut from your cloth, you realize that Vi and I are the only reasons you're alive. Sit back, do what we tell you to do, keep your trap shut and don't even fucking mention 'honour' again or so help me I'll knock you out myself. Got it?"  
  
    Meekly, Farwil nodded. Vilvyni's lip curled, but she nodded curtly at him, and moved to lead the party, Vilja a solid, comfortable presence at her back.  
  
    But the next hallway was empty. No daedra at all. In fact, the tower keep was surprisingly empty. Then Vilvyni remembered the daedra outside of Cheydinhal, innumerable, and the outmatched guards. They had to close the Gate. She had no idea how daedra came to be in these towers, but it seemed likely that more would muster and march on Cheydinhal.  
  
    A glimmer of light caught her attention. With a cry of surprise she fell on the little fountain in the corner of the room. Cool light played around her. She thrust her hands and head into the font, drinking pure magicka down, feeling all the gaps inside her fill up. Greedily she took it inside of her until there wasn't anything left.  
  
    "Magicka," she explained curtly, as the euphoria faded and she turned to face the slack-jawed knights. "It's meant to keep the dremora sorcerers replenished, but it works just as well for a mer mage."  
  
    She was still tired, and sometimes that was dangerous: to be filled with magic and to be tired was to risk losing control. But there was still the sigil keep to face.  
  
    In the end, the sigil keep was not so difficult, and the fight went by so quickly there was no room for fear. A lone dremora guarded it, though the frost atronach he summoned evened the odds. Vilja was staggering with weariness, and the knights were sluggish. Vilvyni frantically summoned her own allies, but she misspoke the incantations. The dremora and fire atronach that fought for her both vanished before a whole minute was up, leaving Vilja alone to fend off the spears of ice the frost atronach flung, while Vilvyni and the Knights faced the dremora.  
  
    But it was enough. Vilvyni shot the enemy dremora in the hand with one of her poisoned arrows. The silence poison took hold quickly, and the dremora was clumsy with his sword. He knocked Farwil to the ground, but Bremman was there at once, roaring in anger, parrying the dremora's thrust, slipping his sword below the daedra's guard and hacking at his armpit between pauldron and cuirass.  
  
    Vilvyni threw a handful of flames into the dremora's face. Quickly, with a speed Vilvyni hadn't believed the old Knight could muster, Bremman lifted his sword and plunged it into the dremora's throat.  
  
    Vilvyni dragged herself to the sigil stone. The others followed: Vilja was limping, Farwil was half-held by Bremman, who looked like a tottering stack of dishes. Vilja grabbed Bremman's hand, and Vilvyni held Vilja's other hand as she reached for the stone.  
  
    As always, it was so warm it felt like a living thing, and it was slippery, like glass. It was so easily removed, and she cradled it against her chest as everything fell into a blur of collapsing architecture and the disorienting jerk of passing between realms.

~~~~

They fell out onto the grass above Cheydinhal. It was around mid-morning, and what lay before them was carnage. Guards lay amongst the heap of daedric monsters, their blood turning the ground into a muddy morass of blood and gore. There were isolated pockets of fighting further down, and all the trees in the vicinity had burned away clear to the western gate stables, where the guards were making their last stand. The nearby paddocks were empty, and Vilvyni thought absently that the horses must have been evacuated, her own mount among them.  
  
    The walls of Cheydinhal were glinting. In the shadows, they seemed covered in a purple haze. Vilvyni squinted: up top, she saw mages tracing the patterns for shield reinforcement into the air. So they were still following her orders. She sighed in relief, sagging against the blood-spattered turf.  
  
    Vilja, meanwhile, was shedding her armour. When the last bit had fallen away, she collapsed, painting. The Knights, much more slowly, followed suit.  
  
    They sat or lay there in the grass breathing fresher air than they had found in Oblivion, too tired to move. It might have been hours they rested, half-swooning on the grass and watching the guards cut down daedra through muzzy eyes. Finally, when the sun was still high, a squadron of guards escorted them to Count Indarys.  
  
    Vilvyni barely remembered anything that followed. Somehow, they were alive, and heroes. They were fed bread and meat, grapes and cheeses, which she ate mechanically, so tired she couldn't even bother to identify flavours. The count thanked her formally, and gave her a magical staff as a reward—some kind of heirloom, which probably meant the enchantment was faulty.  
  
    It was evening by the time she staggered to the Mages' Guild and into bed. She thought Vilja might have come with her, but she no longer cared. Vi could take care of herself. Meanwhile,  the bed was soft, and that was the last thing Vilvyni knew before the sleep she desperately needed took hold of her.


End file.
